


Aurora Borealis

by enoughtotemptme



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Florist!Clarke, POV Alternating, Tattoo Artist!Bellamy, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:27:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4388279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enoughtotemptme/pseuds/enoughtotemptme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke sets up shop next door to Aurora's Tattoos; Bellamy takes issue with her flower shop's name. The rest goes from there.</p><p>(Originally a tumblr prompt fic posted with A Light That's Keeping Us Forever; now a multichapter fic of its own.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came from blakesdoitbetter's request for Bellarke + tattoo artist Bellamy and florist Clarke! After the first part went up, I got so much lovely encouragement that I decided to continue it; however, when I started planning and writing I realized it was going to be at least five parts, and much more suited to being its own fic. Forgive me for reposting if you've already read the first part! 
> 
> Every horizontal line break signifies a change in POV.

He doesn’t pay much attention when the empty storefront next to his shop is finally leased, other than to absently hope whatever goes in brings some new clients into his place.  _Aurora’s_  is doing fine, but it never hurts to get more business.

But a couple weeks later, coming back from his lunch break, Bellamy absolutely does notice that the next door shop’s new sign has gone up, just to the right of his on the row of shops.

 _Borealis Blooms_ , it reads. He ducks into  _Aurora’s_ , barks at Lincoln and Monroe that he’s going to be a few minutes longer, and makes his way, fuming, next door.

“Are you kidding me?” he demands as he barges into the shop. It’s got that new paint smell, the walls now a calm cream instead of dingy white, and there’s furniture still wrapped in packing plastic clustered in the middle of floor.

There’s no one in there, and for a second Bellamy feels embarrassed about yelling into an empty room, but then a woman pops up from behind the counter.  

She’s covered in paint, her hair is falling out of a sloppy topknot, and the strap of her tank top is sliding down her shoulder.

“Uh,” Bellamy says, and that’s how he meets the girl next door.

* * *

“Can I help you?” Clarke asks. She’s sweaty and hot and she’s been crouching behind the counter organizing office supplies long enough that her thighs are trembling and burning in the  _worst_  way.

The good kind of thigh trembling has, sadly, been all too absent from her life since she broke up with Lexa and moved from Arkadia to D.C.

She’s sure she looks like a total mess, and resents the man standing in the middle of her half-ready shop on principle, because he looks crisp and cool in a dark v-neck as if the humidity doesn’t affect him at all.

And damn it  _all_  if the sight of the ink adorning his exposed skin doesn’t get her even more hot and bothered.

“Yeah,” he says, and stalks up to her until all that’s separating them is the narrow expanse of the counter. “What the hell is up with your sign?”

She blinks at him. “My…sign?”

Is he trying to use some weird kind of angry pick-up line on her?

“Borealis Blooms,” he grits out, and Clarke can’t decide if she is or isn’t disappointed that the answer to her question is apparently no.

“You’re one of the guys from the tattoo parlor,” she realizes, because  _duh_.

“Yeah, and you’re the girl who’s ripping off my shop name,” he snaps.

* * *

“Excuse me?” the woman says, and Bellamy’s not distracted by her lips when she blows a piece of hair out of her face.

“Aurora borealis?”

“Oh.” She does look a little chagrined, pulling up her tank top strap and fidgeting with it. “I meant to talk to the owner before it went up. I got distracted.”

“Well, talk,” he says.

“Oh, you’re—? I’m—” Her cheeks were already flushed when he came in, but now even her nose turns pink as she blushes. “I didn’t think you’d mind, I guess. I just—I’d wanted to open this place for a long time, and when I was looking for space and saw your shop’s name, it seemed kind of perfect.”

He stares at her.

“Besides,” she says, lifting her chin defiantly. “It’s kind of cute, don’t you think?”

“I own a tattoo parlor,” Bellamy says flatly. “I don’t need a fucking cutesy his-and-hers shopfront thing going on.”

She narrows her eyes. “Well, too bad. I’ve already paid for the sign. And you’re the one who named your tattoo parlor after a  _fairy-tale_ ,” she adds. “If anyone has a cutesy shop name it’s you.”

“It was my mother’s name,” he finds himself blurting out, and—okay, it’s not like it’s a secret, anyone who knows him knows he named the shop after her, not the princess. But usually he just lets strangers and customers think it’s because of the fairy-tale, what with the getting pricked with needles or spindles or whatever.

She’s quiet for a long moment, and he puts on a scowl when he starts to itch under her pensive gaze.

* * *

“What?” he asks defensively.

“Nothing,” Clarke replies. “Just—my dad. He was a scientist at UCLA. Studied northern lights.”

She can practically see the fight melt out of him when he registers the way she used past tense too, and so she doesn’t take (much) offense when he says, “I’m not going to convince you to change your shop name, am I?”

She smiles. “Nope. But you’ll see. It’ll be good for both our businesses.”

He sighs heavily and sticks his hand out. “Bellamy Blake. Tattoo artist.”

His hand is warm and dry and big around hers, and Clarke despairs that she’s probably got gross clammy hands from the stupid humidity. “Clarke Griffin. Floral artist.”

“Got any tattoos, Clarke?”

She snorts. “No.” Not yet, at least. “Got any favorite flowers?”

Bellamy shrugs. “The pretty ones.”

“All flowers are pretty,” she says, and he grins for the first time. She nearly goes weak-kneed, but she’s probably just dehydrated—the heat and humidity and all that.

She’s definitely not imagining that grin on his face while she explores the expanse of skin underneath his shirt, hunting for more of his tattoos.

“I don’t think so. I’ve got one guy? He studies flowers, comes in a few times a year to add to his collection. And let me tell you, there are some fucking freaky looking orchids,” Bellamy replies, and she laughs. “I hope you’re not into those.”

* * *

“I’m hoping to stick with the more standard stuff in my shop,” Clarke says, eyes still sparkling with laughter. “Though I’m always open to trying something new.”

Bellamy grins at her; how can he not? Sure, her shop name was a somewhat irritating surprise, but he’ll learn to live with it. But Clarke is all pink, flushed skin and mussed blonde hair and there’s a streak of paint on her cheek, and  _fuck_ , he does  _not_  have time for a crush on the girl next door.

He clears his throat and starts to back away. “Anyway. Sorry for barging in, I guess. Good luck getting everything set up.”

“Oh,” Clarke says, following him with her eyes as he awkwardly scoots out of her shop. “Well, thank you. Maybe I’ll see you around?”

“Probably,” he acknowledges. “Neighbors, you know.”

She gives him a puzzled smile as he lingers in the doorway, watching her. “Okay…good. Nice to meet you, Bellamy.”

“You too, Clarke,” he gets out, and then he forces himself out the door. He snaps a quick picture of the storefront with his phone and slips back into his own shop.

Monroe’s working on a client, but Lincoln’s at his drafting table.

“Where have you been?” he asks. Lincoln’s working on a design for one of their oldest clients, something to complete her second sleeve while looking both unique and as if it belongs with the rest of her pieces.

“Met the new shop owner,” Bellamy replies as he opens his laptop and pulls up  _Aurora’s_  Facebook page. “Yelled at her about the sign.”

“I like it,” Lincoln says. “So does Octavia.”

“Wait, how does Octavia already have an opinion on it? It just went up.”

Lincoln shrugs calmly. “She brought me lunch.”

Bellamy is the littlest bit offended that his baby sister came by the shop and didn’t say hello to him, but then again, he’d probably have been forced to eat some of the food she brought if she had seen him.

He’s more than happy to let Octavia’s boyfriend shoulder that responsibility.

“What was it this time?”

“A sandwich from the deli next to the dojo.” Bellamy knows he’s not imagining the note of relief in Lincoln’s voice.

“Lucky man,” he replies before clicking around a bit more. 

Bellamy goes back and forth for a good five minutes about it before he gives in and posts a new status with the photo of Clarke’s storefront to their Facebook page. Then he forces himself to log out and put all thoughts of the hot blonde florist out of his mind as he prepares for his next appointment.

_Aurora’s Tattoos welcomes Borealis Blooms to the neighborhood._

He’s the only one left in the shop when Clarke slips in the door later that night, just after closing. Bellamy only has a second to see that her face is scrubbed clean of paint, and that her stupid tank top is slipping off her shoulder  _still_ , and that she’s got a smile on her face that’s kind of nervous and kind of beautiful and maybe just a little bit wicked.

 _Calm the fuck down, Blake,_  he thinks. Just because the florist is pretty and kind of clever with the stupid shop name thing doesn’t mean he should be thinking about throwing her across his drafting table and making out or anything like that, and—

“So, I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo,” she says, and  _goddamnit_ , he’s doomed. 


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke gets a consultation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy that you're all excited about me continuing this story! Thanks so much for leaving comments, and I hope you enjoy this next installment. <3

The rest of the day goes okay. Clarke gets a lot done, though not quite as much as she had hoped, which she blames entirely on Bellamy Blake.

He’s just…so tall. And tattooed.

And really,  _really_  hot, and Clarke wonders if maybe she made a mistake, picking this spot for her shop, because if she’s going to be this distracted all the time by the thought of the cute boy with the tattoos next door, she doesn’t know how she’ll get  _anything_  done, let alone make money.

“Get your shit together, Griffin,” she mutters. “You can do this.”

And she can—she does, and at the end of the day, she beams proudly at the little shop. Her counter’s organized, her work station in the back is all put together, she’s unwrapped and positioned the pretty, sophisticated furniture where she’ll consult with clients about their orders. Now that the bulk of cleaning, arranging, organizing is over, most of what’s left is the fun stuff—the decorating.

With that thought, Clarke takes a deep, nervous breath as she’s reminded of what she promised herself she’d do once the shop was ready to be decorated.

The fact that the neighboring shop was called  _Aurora’s_  was enough to convince Clarke it was meant to be; the fact that it was a tattoo parlor, and one that proved reputable with very talented artists when she did some googling, was just a bonus.

She cleans up in the little bathroom in the back, is mortified to see the paint on her  _face_ , and fidgets with her clothes and her hair until she’s as put together as she’s going to get.

Not that it matters; Bellamy already saw her at her worst today.

But still. Clarke would like to face him when she’s at least a  _little_  tidier.

She wasn’t planning on doing this today when she left her new apartment, but the timing seems right, so she swipes on some cherry chapstick, tugs her tank top strap up yet again, and heads next door.

“So,” Clarke says, slipping into his empty shop just as he’s heading to the door. She counts herself lucky that he’s still there, and that she doesn’t see anyone else. “I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo.”

* * *

“Really?” he says. She gives him a look, and he rubs a hand on the back of his neck. “Right. You don’t really have any other reason to be stopping by.”

She looks thoughtful. “Well, I  _could_  just be being neighborly and whatnot—you should know I bake a lot, and I’ll probably be bringing in pumpkin bread and cookies and stuff all the time because I struggle with recipe sizes—but no, I’m here because I want a tattoo. To celebrate.”

“The shop?”

She nods.

“What if it goes under?” Bellamy has no fucking idea what made him imply to the hot florist from next door that he thought her shop was going to fail, but she just wrinkles her nose at him.

“Dick,” she says, but it’s without heat. “I don’t know, then I’ll have tried something I really wanted to do, and I’ll still be proud of myself for it. And it would be nice to have a pretty reminder.”

He considers her, but though he barely knows her, she doesn’t seem like the type to spontaneously decide on getting a tattoo, without thinking it all through, or the type that would decide something like this and regret it later. Not that it’s his job to imagine if someone’s going to change their minds years down the road, though he wants his clients to be satisfied with their ink.

Regardless, Clarke Griffin seems like the kind of woman who knows exactly what she wants.

“What were you thinking?” he asks her, and she raises an eyebrow.

“Flowers,” she says, and he starts laughing at her desert-dry tone. “Shocker, I know.”

“Any particular kind?” he asks, speaking around chuckles.

“Pomegranate flowers,” she says.

* * *

Bellamy stops laughing, and Clarke’s not sure whether to be satisfied or concerned.

“Bellamy?”

He clears his throat. “Pomegranate? I didn’t think many florists worked with pomegranate flowers.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t work with them. I mean, they’re still flowers so they hold that sort of meaning for me, but it’s more of a nerdy preference I guess.”

His questioning expression prompts her to continue. “Okay, like—do you like mythology?”

“Damn it,” he mutters.

“Excuse me?”

“Go on,” he says, but his eyes seem darker and hotter than before.

She eyes him, but continues. “I want the flowers, but I want the fruit, too. Maybe cracked open, seeds spilling out—the whole Persephone thing, you know? Eating the seeds and escaping her old life.”

“Not all of it,” he replies, surprising her. “She only ate six seeds.”

Clarke shrugs. “Yeah, but—maybe not everything in her past was worth escaping. Maybe there were good things, too. That she wanted to remember, while moving forward with something else.”

He just stares at her, and her face starts to heat up. “I don’t—does that sound dumb? I’ve wanted that as a tattoo for years, but you’re the professional—”

“No,” Bellamy says hoarsely. “Perfect. You’re—” He clears his throat. “Uh, it’s perfect.”

* * *

She beams at him. “Thanks! So, you’ll do it?”

Bellamy’s not quite sure if he’s had a stroke and is hallucinating this apparently perfect woman, or if she really fucking exists, so it takes him a second to reply. “Oh. Oh! Well, you’ll probably want to look at our artist portfolios first, choose the best fit for the look you’re wanting.”

He trails off; she’s already shaking her head. “I already looked at your website. All of your artists are really talented, but I want you.”

“Me?”

She nods.

He swallows. “Okay. Yeah, great. I can work up a design for you, see if you like it.”

“Awesome,” she replies, and does the stupidest, cutest little wiggly dance of excitement. “Oh my god, I’m really doing this!”

He grins helplessly at her. “Any thoughts on where you want it, or how big?”

“Yeah,” she replies, and points at him with a mock stern expression. “ _Don’t_  call it a tramp stamp, but I want it on my lower back. But big, you know?”

“I hate that phrase,” Bellamy replies. “It’s just a derogatory, sexist way to describe a perfectly acceptable tattoo placement.”

“Exactly,” Clarke agrees.

“But I need a little more to go on than just ‘big,’” Bellamy adds.

“Sure,” Clarke says, and then he nearly chokes when she turns and folds up her tank top until he can see the bottom edge of her bra.

Fuck him, it’s not even a sexy bra; all he can see is plain blue cotton, no lace or anything, and it’s not as if he doesn’t see bare skin all the time in his line of work. But somehow it’s hard to keep things feeling very professional when he’s staring at the long, pale line of her spine, all the way down to where her shorts hang low on her hips.

He realizes belatedly that she’s talking. “—from here to here,” Clarke’s saying, small fingers tracing over her dimples of Venus. “No smaller, though I’d consider going bigger.”

 _Don’t touch her, don’t touch her, don’t touch her_ , Bellamy tells himself.

 _Fuck_. He  _really_  wants to touch her.

* * *

The tiny hairs on her back and her neck are standing up, her skin prickling and aware even though it’s not cold in the tattoo parlor.

Maybe it wasn’t her best idea, starting to strip in front of the unfairly attractive tattoo artist next door, but she’s not going to claim it’s her worst.

Not when she turns around, tugging her shirt down, and catches him staring almost longingly at her.

“What do you think?” she asks softly, and he kind of shakes himself before offering her a sheepish, almost boyish smile.

“That’s—it—it’s a good choice,” he finishes, and she bites her lip to keep in her smile. “I’d recommend going a little bigger, actually, if you’re up for it. Add some leaves to the design, let the whole thing be kind of lush.”

Clarke nods. “I’m up for it. How big do you think I should go?”

He looks a little anguished, but then gestures at her torso. “May I?”

She considers him, and he waits, eyes inky black when before they were a deep brown.

“Sure,” she says, and he circles around her.

Gentle fingers roll up the hem of her tank top again, and she squeaks a little when he tucks the fabric under her bra so it doesn’t fall down. She can hear the smile in his voice as his palms slide over her bare skin. “Here, I think. Spanning almost from hip to hip, covering the entire small of your back. Maybe going a little higher, too.”

She shivers, and despairs because it would have been impossible for him not to notice.

“That big, huh?” she says, and her voice is embarrassingly breathless.

His hands linger on her back just a moment longer before fixing her shirt and stepping away.

“Your decision, obviously, and I’ll make you a design that’ll look good at any size. But I think you might want to go bigger, even if it’s your first tattoo.”

“Okay. I’ll think about it,” she promises.

“I’ll work up a design for you to look at, see if there’s anything you want changed or added.” She watches as he wanders over to his desk, shoving a wallet and a phone into his back pocket and grabbing some keys.

“Thanks, Bellamy,” she says. When he holds open the shop door for her, she pops up on her toes and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Nice meeting you, neighbor,” she says, and feels his gaze following her all the way down the block.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your thoughts if you get a chance!


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The design.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm loving all of your comments; thanks again for all of your support! Hope you enjoy. :)

Bellamy doesn’t _avoid_ Clarke after that; he’s busy working on her design, that’s all, and if he spends too much time around her he’s pretty sure he’s going to be utterly distracted by wanting to make out with her, run his fingers through her messy, wavy hair, ruck those tank tops she seems to like up around her ribcage so he can lick those little dimples just above the gentle curve of her ass.

He’s not _opposed_ to doing those things at some point—in fact, he really fucking hopes he gets a chance to take her out at some point, and then take her to bed—but he remembers the way she talked about her dad, and the shop, and wanting _him_ to do her tattoo, and Bellamy’s determined that before he does anything else with the pretty girl next door, he’s going to design her the best tattoo of his entire fucking career.

But he does see Clarke about a week after her impromptu consultation; she walks in on him talking to Octavia about the new tiny tots class she’s thinking of teaching at the dojo where she works.

“Oh,” Clarke says, a basket hanging over her arm. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt.”

* * *

Clarke feels pretty much like she wants to sink into the floor or something. Like, it would be pretty great if someone threw water on her and she melted and disappeared, Wicked Witch style. That would be preferable to coming into _Aurora’s_ only to find Bellamy chatting it up with a devastatingly gorgeous brunette, obviously more than just tattoo artist and client.

She tries not to look as flustered as she feels when two pairs of unfairly pretty eyes, one dark and one pale green, snap to her. “Um…”

“Hey, Clarke,” Bellamy says easily. “This is Octavia, my sister.”

“Oh.” Clarke feels herself relax even as she tries desperately not to blush when she realizes her embarrassingly obvious mistake. Look at their matching jawlines. Only genetics can account for two perfect jawlines in such close proximity; coincidence is not enough. She steps forward, offering her free hand. “Clarke Griffin. I’m about to open next door.”

“That’s you? I love your shop’s name!” Octavia exclaims, and Clarke sends Bellamy a smug look as he sighs.  

His sister ignores him as she asks Clarke rapid questions about when she moved to town— “Last month.”

Where is she living? “With my best friend from college, Raven.”

When is she going to open? “Next week, hopefully.”

Does she do martial arts? “Uh. No? I do like yoga, though, if that matters at all.”

Octavia nods sharply at that. “Cool, there’s a class I go to on Wednesday evenings. You should come and check it out. Bring your friend if you want.”

Clarke blinks. “That…that sounds great, actually. But Raven will probably pass; she thinks yoga is the devil’s favorite torture.” She’d done more than enough painful stretching during her physical therapy for her leg, she’d told Clarke the last time Clarke had asked if she wanted to try a yoga class with her.

“If you want to try something that involves, like, some violence? Some punching maybe? I’m in,” Raven had said. “But yoga can suck it.”       

“Awesome,” Octavia says, and suddenly Clarke’s exchanging numbers with Bellamy’s sister and making plans for yoga and dinner.

Clarke catches Bellamy watching them, an unidentifiable expression on his face—maybe amusement, maybe terror? Behind him she notices the clock on the wall, and she winces.

“Oops. I really need to get back to work,” she says. “I actually just came in to bring you guys some muffins.”

“You meant it?” Bellamy says, taking the basket she offers and peering in.

“I’m a serial baker,” Clarke says seriously. “Anyway, let me know if you have any allergies, but these ones are pretty basic. I’ll see you guys later!”

* * *

Octavia stares him down after Clarke leaves.

“You haven’t asked her out, have you.” She says it flatly, making it clear it’s not really a question.

His shoulders hunch defensively. “She just moved here. She’s settling in. I don’t want to overwhelm her.”

“Hmm,” Octavia replies, voice mock-thoughtful. “I just heard a whole bunch of fat, lame excuses but not _one_ denial that you have feelings for her.”

“Feelings is probably a strong word,” he mutters, glaring at the design on his drafting table. “I’m not about to confess my undying love for her, Octavia.”

He’s just, objectively, really curious about how the fuck she does it. Seriously, the muffins are in an actual woven _basket_ lined with a pretty floral tea towel. How does she have time to prep her new shop and look the way she does and still bake muffins and package them up so perfectly, like she’s Little Red Riding Hood taking food to Granny or something? Jesus.

“It’s a crush,” she says gleefully. “You’ve got a crush. You’re crushing on the girl next door. You realize you’re a huge cliché, don’t you.”

“Go away.”

She smacks a kiss to his cheek, snickers when he makes a face and wipes her lipstick off his skin.

“Smell you later, nerd,” she says. “I’m staying over at Lincoln’s.”

He grunts and waves.

After that, he keeps working diligently every day on Clarke’s tattoo, but he still has other clients to work with, and then his sister announces she’s moving in with Lincoln, which is—it’s not unexpected, but it’s still a little bit of a punch to the gut. So he’s busy after closing most nights, helping Octavia pack and then move box after box to Lincoln’s apartment.

But a couple weeks after that first meeting with Clarke, Bellamy finishes the design. He doesn’t know if he’s ever spent so much time and effort with the details of a client’s design sketch, but every bit of it is as flawless as he can make it.

“Looks good,” Lincoln says, peering over his shoulder. The admiration is clear in his voice. “For Clarke, right?”

“Yeah,” Bellamy sighs.

“Stop being a wimp!” Monroe calls from the back. She was the last to finish with her client that day, and she’s still finishing with clean-up. “Show it to her before you’re both old and grey.”

“Fuck off,” Bellamy grumbles, but pushes himself to his feet.

“You should ask her out,” Lincoln says helpfully as Bellamy heads to the door. Bellamy sends him a dirty look.

“You fuck off, too,” he says, and leaves.

* * *

It’s the end of her first day open when he knocks on her shop door. She looks up from the counter where she’s totaling the day’s sales to see him through the glass. He points toward his shop and mouths the words, “Come over.”

Clarke waves back, and after he disappears she hurries to finish checking her receipts. It’s not incredibly impressive, given she hasn’t had any time to book events or cover any major flower-giving holidays. But there’s a decent amount of foot traffic in the area and she managed to lure in quite a few younger tourists with the flower crowns and the sweet little bouquets that she advertised on a sandwich board out on the sidewalk. She’s not about to hire any employees just yet, but—

She thinks she can do this.

She _is_ doing this.

Clarke’s giddy as she locks up, nearly skipping into _Aurora’s._ Monroe and Lincoln are leaving just as she arrives, and they both offer her congratulations on her grand opening day.

“Thanks!” she says, and waves as they depart.

“Hey,” Clarke says when she sees Bellamy walking toward her from his drafting table. “Haven’t seen much of you recently.”

She’d seen him in passing, through her shop windows or whenever she walked past _Aurora’s_ on her way to lunch—she’d even thought of inviting him to grab a bite with her more than once, but he always looked busy.

Not that she was looking in the windows for _him_ , or anything. She was just checking things out. In general.

“Yeah, sorry,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I had stuff with my sister, and the shop—”

“Bellamy,” she interrupts, “It’s not big deal. I’ve been busy too.” She’d spent the last week working with Monty Green, who was developing her website for her; last night had been spent updating the shop’s Facebook page, and she’d gone to bed with warm fuzzy feelings when she’d seen that _Borealis Blooms_ had been tagged in a welcoming post by _Aurora’s Tattoos_.

“I know,” he says, and reaches for her. Her cheeks prickle with a blush as he straightens the flower she’d tucked behind her ear. “How was the big day?”

“Good,” she says. “No, great. It was wonderful. Not as lucrative as I’d like, but I haven’t had any time to get an established client base. You know, right?”

“I do know,” he says. “The first six months especially can be tough, but you’ll make it.”

“Changing your tune, huh?” she teases, though his casual confidence in her makes her feel warm and joyful.

She can see the tips of his ears turning pink where they peek out from underneath his unruly hair.

“Anyway,” he says, “How about we pretend I didn’t say shitty things that day and instead we look at your tattoo design?”

“It’s done?” Clarke shoves him toward his drafting table until he moves, chuckling. “Jesus, way to bury the lead.”

He gestures for her to sit on his stool, and she does, eyes greedily taking in every detail of the sketch while pretending the warmth of him at her back isn’t distracting.

It looks like something she’d see in a vintage gardening book, a cluster of round pomegranates in the middle, one cracking open to reveal the jewel-like seeds inside, a few spilling onto the gorgeous green leaves. But the flowers…

The flowers are red, but the shading in the petals sets them apart from the typical vibrancy of pomegranate blossoms. Instead, they’re done in a drifting gradient of color, reds and pinks and greens, fading dark and bright and beautiful.

“It’s an aurora borealis,” she realizes, and her heart thumps painfully in her chest.

“You don’t have to go with the shading; I think it’ll look good with the bright red all by itself, but—”

“I love it,” she interrupts, and surprises them both when she stands up and throws her arms around him. “It’s beautiful.”

He seems to hesitate for a moment, then he holds her close.

"I'm glad you like it," he says, breath tickling her ear, and her skin prickles.  

She draws back, but makes no move to break his hold. Instead, she tilts her head back to look at him.

"Thank you," she says softly.

His returning smile is luminous, and does things to her insides that are decidedly not innocent or neighborly, though that may also be due to the fact that she can feel the firmness of his body up against hers.

"You're welcome. Any changes you'd like to make? You should probably think on it for a while, make sure you're sure."

But she's already shaking her head. "Just like that. It's exactly what I want. More than I ever expected, actually."

They separate finally, and even in the sticky D.C. heat Clarke feels a little too cool. His steady gaze on her brings her temperature back up as they schedule her first session, and by the time she follows him out of the shop and they bid each other goodbye, her pulse is fluttering in excitement.

And it’s not all because of the tattoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your thoughts if you get a chance! <3


	4. Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first session.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, I know! Thanks for sticking around. I haven't gotten a tattoo (yet?) so I may have overcompensated with the amount of detail/research I put into this chapter, but oh well. 
> 
> Also, we'll see how the next part goes as I write, but this story might end up stretching to 6-7 parts instead. My outlining was very vague when I first settled on 5 parts, and in the actual writing it's coming out differently. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

They plan out multiple sessions for Clarke’s tattoo, and Bellamy schedules the first of them at the end of the day next week, to work around Clarke’s schedule. He really doesn't mind staying open late for her. It’s just being nice, or neighborly, or whatever.

Just the two of them. Alone in the shop.

He'd do it for anybody.

Fuck, no he wouldn't.

His sister must be rubbing off on Lincoln—Bellamy cringes and tries not to gag when he realizes his error in word choice—because when the other man makes to leave the evening of Clarke's first appointment, he levels an infuriating smirk at Bellamy, the kind Bellamy's used to getting only from Octavia. Well, and Miller. And sometimes Monroe, but only on days she strolls in wearing the same clothes as yesterday.

Well, fuck, but whatever. The point is, Lincoln doesn’t smirk at him like that.

Until today.

“Get the fuck out,” Bellamy says mildly, and Lincoln snorts. Monroe’s already gone home, off for a long weekend away to meet Murphy’s parents. She’d looked quietly terrified when she’d left; it was a new, interesting look for her.

“You might want to calm down a little,” Lincoln replies.

“I’m fucking calm,” Bellamy says, voice still blasé. He’s totally cool, like ice, or cucumbers, or other vegetables that require refrigeration.

A blonde passes by the front windows; Bellamy knocks his water bottle off the table when he jumps. It’s not Clarke, though, and he can feel Lincoln staring at him.

“I’m calm,” he says lamely, picking up the bottle.

Lincoln looks skeptical. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Isn’t it pizza night?” Octavia tries her hand at cooking most nights, and usually Lincoln does his best to salvage it, but once a week she capitulates to getting takeout instead.

Lincoln nods, and Bellamy cracks a smile. “Nah, I’m good. But thanks.” Lincoln looks relieved, but Bellamy knows he wouldn’t have made the offer if he didn’t mean it. And Lincoln being willing to give up his one night of guaranteed non-Octavia cooking means a lot.

Octavia could have done a lot worse.

He asks Bellamy a few more times, and asks if there’s anything left that he can help with. Bellamy can feel himself getting antsy again, and he’s distracted as he tries to reply to Lincoln, which results in that smirk reappearing on the other man’s face. At least Lincoln doesn’t make any cracks about hoping Bellamy doesn’t fuck up the tattoo, which is good; as a general rule, they don’t ever say shit like that to each other, just in case. Their work is permanent, and it’s not really funny to imagine screwing it up for their clients.

Bellamy really doesn’t need to be jinxed or something when he’s trying to do Clarke’s linework.

“Get out, seriously,” Bellamy says, and finally Lincoln nods, wishes him good luck, and leaves.

When he’s alone in the shop, he lets out a long, slow breath.

Jesus fucking christ, you’d think he was an apprentice about to start his first tattoo, not the owner of his own shop with years of experience.

* * *

Clarke finishes the day’s paperwork, cleans up, and changes her underwear.

Well, she changes all of her clothes, trading the pretty eyelet dress she’d worn all day for a soft, loose t-shirt and a pair of ridiculously stretchy yoga pants. And normally, she’s partial to cotton bikini panties, but the yoga pants show the lines, and plus sometimes the waist of them dips low and the edge of her panties might peek out. So before she dons the pants, she slips into a pair of low-riding hipsters, a silkier material that lies flat on her skin, and the waistband is edged with tiny, delicate lace.

What? She just wants to be prepared.

“You’re an idiot,” she says to herself, but nods approvingly at her reflection in the shop’s little bathroom mirror. When she’d paid her deposit, Bellamy had told her to check the shop’s website for do’s and don’ts, and had given her a print-out on top of that. She’d eaten a big, late lunch, she has gatorade in her purse, she’s decked out in her comfiest clothing. Raven had dropped her off at work that morning and is on call to pick her up, just in case Clarke doesn’t feel up to the trek home.

She’s ready. Well, for the tattoo. For hours on end of Bellamy Blake with his hands on her skin? Not quite.

But Clarke grabs her bag and locks up anyway.

The bell above _Aurora’s_ door jingles cheerfully when she pushes it open cautiously. “Bellamy?”

“Clarke, hey,” she hears, and she turns to see him setting a water bottle down on his desk.

“Hey,” she replies, and fidgets. “So. How was your day?”

“Long. How’s business?”

She considers. “Not overwhelming, but steady. I’m about 62% confident that I’ll make it.”

Bellamy smiles wryly at her after she stands, quiet, by the door for another moment. “Nerves?”

“No,” she says immediately. Then, “Well, yeah. Some. But not enough to change my mind.”

He nods, takes her elbow and starts leading her back. His fingers are dry, just a little rough, and the way her pulse starts thrumming faster is not an auspicious start to this appointment.

“That’s normal. Even for people getting their third, fourth, twentieth tattoos. I still get nervous.” He pauses, then flashes her a smile. “Though that’s mostly because it’s hard to believe anyone else is as good as me.”

Clarke laughs, feeling some of the anxiety flow out of her. “How many tattoos do you have?” she asks curiously. In Bellamy’s workroom, he takes her bag from her and hangs it on a wall hook, then gestures for her to sit.

“Seven,” he says. “My designs for all of them, though Monroe and Lincoln put their own touch on the ones they did.”

“Wow. They did all of them?”

“All but two.” He pulls at the neckline of his shirt so she can see more of the tattoo that’s always peeking out. It’s a compass, exquisite, the spiky directional lines branching out from above his heart. “My mentor did this one.”

“That’s beautiful,” she says. When he shifts, she pulls away the curious fingers she hadn’t realized had moved to touch his skin. “Was it your first?”

He smiles faintly, taps the lettering on the face of the compass before adjusting his shirt. “Yeah. The directions are in my sister's handwriting, and after I got it done, I knew I wanted to do more. So I bugged the shit out of Nyko until he agreed to take me on as an apprentice.”

Clarke’s lips quirk up at the idea. “And the other one?”

“The other one, I did,” Bellamy says. “So, are you all set? The bathroom’s through that door—” he points through the open doorway, at the door across the hall— “and I’ve got water, snacks in case you need energy.”

“I ate late,” Clarke says, letting the topic slide away for now. “And I’ve got gatorade and banana bread in my purse.”

* * *

He should have known she’d be prepared.

Hopefully he can keep his shit together as well as she does.

Bellamy shows her the stencil for the linework, getting her approval one more time. Then he changes the angle of the chair until it’s flat, and directs her to lie down, shifting her limbs and adjusting until she’s both comfortable on her stomach and he’s got the best possible access to her lower back. Her shirt rides up a bit in the process, and he sees those damned dimples again, just above where her pants and the slightest bit of lace—god help him—sit.   

Bellamy clears his throat abruptly. “You alright?” he checks, and she smiles up at him, her head turned to the side and her cheek pillowed on her arms.

“I’m great,” she says. “Now hurry up.”

He snorts, but talks her through everything as he lifts her shirt up, tucking it under the band of her bra so it won’t fall in the way while he’s working; then, he talks her through shaving the fine, invisible hairs on her back. He notices goosebumps pop up as he drags the razor of her skin in careful strokes.

“Are you cold?” he asks, concerned. It’s going to be hard enough keeping a steady hand on her skin, but goosebumps or shivering would be a nightmare to work with.

“What?” she says, her voice funny. Bellamy lifts the razor off her back and repeats the question. “Oh, um. No. I mean, maybe a little.”

“I’ll turn the thermostat up,” Bellamy decides, and does. “Let me know if you’re getting too cold at any point. Some people need help staying warm, so I’ve got a stash of gloves, hats, socks.”

“Yuck,” Clarke says, voice muffled. “Socks?”

He laughs, pats the area dry. “They’re brand new. I don’t make my clients wear used, dirty socks.”

“Good. I was worried; I didn’t know if we could come back from it if it turned out you were a used, dirty socks distributor.”

“Shut up,” he says, and then he gets to work.

Today’s appointment is just to complete the linework, and though he’s concentrating harder than ever on pulling straight lines, making sure each movement is crisp and dark and sleek, it’s thankfully easier than he imagined it would be. Tattooing Clarke, that is.

He’s able to fall into the zone like he does with other clients, concentrating only on the tattoo machine and the art and the skin, breaking occasionally just to check in with Clarke.

And if he notices the scent of her, of lemons, verbena, and something else sweet—well, it’s just a bonus for the whole experience.

The only thing that would be better is if he could feel her skin, but he’s wearing gloves, so all he can tell is that she’s warm. But he knows enough to imagine how she would feel under his fingertips, the soft, smooth expanse bared to his eyes.

Okay, maybe he’s not concentrating _only_ on the tattoo, he admits to himself when she warns him that she’s going to sneeze. He lifts the machine away from her body, and when she sneezes he’s embarrassed to realize he finds it cute.

Her fucking _sneeze_. It’s adorable, and he sucks.

“Gesundheit,” Bellamy says, and Clarke snorts.

* * *

“I’m ready,” she tells him when he doesn’t immediately start to tattoo again. It hurts, but—well, actually, it hurts pretty much exactly as much as she expected. It’s not total agony, but it’s not comfortable, either. She’s glad that they’re not doing the whole thing in one monstrously long session, though; she’s going to be sore and tired after just the linework.

“Bellamy?” she repeats when she still doesn’t feel the machine on her skin. She turns her head so she can look at him.

“Huh?” He jerks, and meets her gaze. “Oh. Sorry.”

She frowns. “You alright? We can stop, if you need to.”

He huffs a laugh. “No, I’m fine. I should be asking you that.”

“I’m good,” she says, and the timbre of the buzz changes when the machine starts moving over her back again.

Clarke wonders idly if she should bring some earbuds next time, listen to an audiobook or some music to drown out the sound. But she discards the idea almost immediately. The tattoo machine might be kind of loud and awful, but Bellamy talks to her every now and then, explaining something, and she likes being able to listen to him speak.

His body is beautiful, his hands are deft, but his voice might just be the death of her.

What a way to go.

“Done,” Bellamy says, much sooner than she’d expected. But when she checks the clock, hours have gone by.

"Done?"

"Done," he confirms, a smile in his voice. "You want a picture?"

"Yes! Can you use my phone? It's in my purse." Bellamy walks over to her purse, hesitates before peeking inside. Her phone's in the phone pocket, and she can practically see the relief radiating off him when he realizes he doesn't have to dig around. 

She stays still as he snaps several pictures from different angles, then hands her the phone. Clarke's breath catches at the sight, of the clean, sweeping black lines swirling over her skin in a gorgeous pattern. Then skin itself is red, irritated, but she can imagine what it will look like healed, and  _god._

"God," she repeats. "It's amazing without any color." Clarke looks up at him. "Thank you, Bellamy. Really."

"You're welcome. You’re going to need to sleep on your stomach,” he tells her as he helps her sit up, and starts taking care of the inked skin. “At least for a few days.”

“Ugh,” Clarke mutters, and sends a quick text to Raven, confirming that she needs a pick-up. She _could_ walk home, but she really doesn’t feel like it.

“Is that a problem?” he asks, amused, and she looks at him, eyebrow raised.

“I can handle it, but sleeping on my front is far from comfortable.” She pats her heart, and is gratified when his eyes follow the movement, before dipping a little lower.

She _had_ gotten a little cold by the end of the session, not enough to ask for socks, but cold still.

But his hands, delicately securing the wrapping over her tattoo, and his gaze on her takes care of that pretty much instantly. It makes her wonder, what he’s thinking, what he wants.

Maybe, just maybe...he might want her.

“You probably need to get going,” she says softly. It’s dark outside of the shop.

He clears his throat, steps away from her. “Yeah. I should head home. Um, here,” he says, handing her another print-out. “You’ve probably googled the crap out of it, but aftercare is important.”

“Thanks.” Clarke tucks it in her purse, slides off the chair. When she wobbles, his hands go to her middle, high, so he doesn’t grab the freshly inked skin. She gasps anyway as his fingers brush the undersides of her breasts.

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy apologizes immediately, but he doesn’t let go. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she breathes, embarrassed by her reaction—both to standing and to his touch. She is probably the worst client ever, professionalism-wise. She should definitely not make out with him right now. That’s got to be bad client behavior.

But she _wants_ to.

* * *

He urges her to sit again, fetches her purse and fishes the drink out of it.

“Here. You’re not planning on walking home, are you?” he asks, worried. “I can go get my car, give you a ride.”

She drinks deep from the gatorade, then sets it aside and rests a hand on his chest. Her fingertips touch the skin above the shirt’s collar. It’s how he realizes he’s hovering, probably majorly invading her space, but she just smiles up at him. “I’m fine, Bellamy. Really. And Raven’s supposed to pick me up, so…”

“Okay.” He rubs the back of his neck, avoiding her gaze. “You can stay in here until she gets here. I don’t want you waiting outside.”   

“Do you stay open late and wait for all your clients’ rides?” she teases gently.

Bellamy grumbles under his breath.

“What was that?”

“No,” Bellamy hisses out, and sits back down on his own seat so he’s not in touching distance any longer.

Clarke tilts her head as she looks at him. First, it’s surprise that’s on her face, then something bright and sly and hot enough that he starts to flush. “Good.”

Bellamy’s not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but he doesn’t get a chance to do much more than look at her sharply before she’s sliding off the chair again and crossing over to him. Her balance is better, he notes, and then his mind goes pretty much blank as she sits in his lap, links her arms around his neck, and kisses him.


	5. Part V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for my darling [apanoplyofsong](http://www.apanoplyofsong.tumblr.com) (which is not, however much my mind would like to insist otherwise, pronounced like monopoly). I hope this brings some brightness to your day, dear!
> 
> In case you're like, "Julia, it has literally been almost a year, I have no idea what's happening in this fic," we left off just as Clarke sat on Bellamy's lap and kissed him right after they finished up her first tattoo session

He smells sharp, like boy. Kind of antiseptic, probably from keeping hyperclean for his work, but a little spicy too, and that strange, perfect scent that only men seem to have.

Bellamy doesn’t react at first, his mouth soft with surprise under hers, and for a split second Clarke worries that she’s made a terrible, terrible mistake kissing him.

But then his hands find their way to her hips, squeezing tight, and he makes a sound that goes straight through her.

“Clarke,” he says, muffled against her lips, and then he’s kissing her back, _really_ kissing her, wet and heated as she presses closer.

Anything that feels like this couldn’t be a mistake, right? That’s definitely how morality works.

He catches her lips between his, moves one hand deliberately high on her back far above her tattoo to urge her closer, and even as her body heats and aches, the gesture warms something in her.

He’s being careful with her.

She doesn’t feel fragile, doesn’t feel like she’s about to break, but still, his actions make her feel, if not fragile, then precious.

It’s silly, really. But god, she likes it.

She likes _him_.

Clarke leans into him, her chest pressing against his, and when his lips are replaced by teeth, grazing her bottom lip, she opens her mouth with a gasp.

He’s a great kisser, but he’s _really_ good with his tongue, and he draws a long moan out of her.

She moves her hands into his hair, and he deserts her mouth to press kisses to her cheeks, to her chin.

His hair is silky, almost slipping through her fingers, and when she clenches them he groans against her skin, mouth open and wet. She shivers.

“Oh my god,” she says, “oh my _god_ ,” and his teeth are at her jaw, one hand moving between them to toy with the waistband of her yoga pants, and—

“Ahem.”

Clarke almost doesn’t hear the prim word at first, but then it’s followed up with a massively unsubtle cough. She squeaks and nearly falls off Bellamy’s lap; he catches her, but part of his grip hits the farthest edge of her freshly inked tattoo, and Clarke yelps.

“Shit!” Bellamy says, breathing quickly, and moves his hold. “Shit, sorry, shit.”

“It’s okay,” Clarke breathes, wincing a little as the pain in her back, previously mild and easily set aside in favor of his stupidly talented mouth, turns into a throbbing that doesn’t want to be ignored. She’s suddenly very aware that she’s still on his lap, very close. “Um—”

“Uh, hello?”

Clarke swings her gaze to Raven, who’s watching the scene with entirely too much glee. “Hi,” she says flatly.

* * *

Clarke is glaring at the pretty latina and Bellamy—

Bellamy is going to fucking lose his mind.  

Clarke—she—she’s _on his lap._ And her friend is laughing at them, understandably, and Clarke’s a warm, heavy weight on his legs, hips soft under his hands, and he’s more than half-hard and _fuck._

“You must be Bellamy,” the woman says. “I’ve heard a lot about you, but clearly not quite enough.”

“Shut up,” Clarke tells her, clambering off of him, which is actually terrible because he instantly misses the feel of her so close to him, and also he’s not exactly fit to be seen. But Clarke is blushing, color blooming in her cheeks like the poppies she put in her shop window last week, and suddenly it doesn’t seem so bad.

“Um, this is my friend Raven,” Clarke says.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he manages, but as he starts to stand, Raven waves her hand dismissively.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to stand on my account.” Her smirk grows when Clarke hisses “ _Raven!_ ” at her.

Bellamy clears his throat, and Clarke looks at him, still pink-cheeked. Her lips are swollen, a little wet.

(It’s _really_ not helping his, uh, situation.)

“I think we’re going to go,” she says quickly. “Or else I’m going to murder her, so—”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, I probably don’t want anyone murdered back here. Supposed to stay sterile and all that,” Bellamy says, and finally moves to his feet as Clarke grabs her bag.

She smiles weakly at the attempt at a joke, but she can’t seem to meet his eyes completely as she shoves an envelope into his hand, mumbling about payment for the first session. Raven, on the other hand, is looking him up and down with intense scrutiny.

“See you tomorrow?” he asks Clarke.

“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

* * *

Clarke does not see Bellamy Blake tomorrow.

Well, she _sees_ him, through shop windows, but she’s pretty sure he doesn’t see her. Anyway, her flower shop is busy, and she’d be having a hard enough time keeping up even if she wasn’t moving carefully because of her tender back.

And she imagines his shop is busy too, and very deliberately ignores the fact that his shop always seemed busy, but he always makes time for her anyway.

But it’s not like they stopped and chatted _every_ day before they—

Well, before last night.

Raven had driven them home, silent and smirking the entire way; Clarke had ignored her, and both replayed and tried not to replay the last few moments she’d spent with Bellamy over and over in her mind.

She didn’t exactly succeed, and when she woke up that morning, hazy dreams and memories clinging to her mind like cobwebs, the throbbing between her legs was just as strong and much more pleasant than the throbbing from her back.

That doesn’t mean she’s avoiding him. It _doesn’t_.

It doesn't mean that she really, _really_ liked kissing him and would like to do it again approximately forever, but also with some hand-holding involved, and it doesn't mean that she has no idea if he's thinking the same thing or if he is totally fine never seeing her again except to finish her tattoo.   

It just means she’s busy, damn it, and he is too, probably, and neither of them have time to try to talk about whose mouths may have touched other mouths or whose fingers were nearly in someone else’s underwear or who might have dreamed about whom.

Over the next three days, she carefully tends her healing skin, enlisting Raven’s help to gently wash and apply cocoa butter to areas she can’t reach well. Clarke spends every moment she can spare reveling in the stark lines of ink blooming over her back. It’s everything she ever wanted, and it’s not even _finished_.

On the fourth day, she sucks it up, bakes some macaroons, and goes to over to _Aurora’s_ during her lunch hour.

Octavia’s there, stealing chips from Lincoln’s plate while he smiles at her. They both look over when Clarke comes in, and Clarke waves.

“Hey guys. Cookies?”

“Always,” Octavia says, and digs into the basket for a handful. She hands exactly one of them to Lincoln, who just looks amused.

“Oh, hey Clarke,” she hears, and sees Monroe peeking her head out of the tattooing space.

“Hi,” she starts, but Monroe is already saying, “I’ll go tell Bellamy you’re here,” and disappearing into the back again.

“Um,” she says. It makes sense for Monroe to be getting Bellamy, she tells herself. He’s her tattoo artist.

She purposefully looks away so it feels less like she’s waiting on pins and needles to see her crush in the school cafeteria, only to see Octavia watching her with intense scrutiny. In turn, Lincoln is watching Octavia, and his expression is not reassuring.

“How’d your first session go?” Octavia asks abruptly. Lincoln looks puzzled.

“Octavia, didn’t you already—”

She elbows him in the gut, and Clarke clutches the handle of the cookie basket. “Oh, well. Really good.”

* * *

As soon as Monroe tells him Clarke is out front, he halts the shading he’s doing on Luna’s lighthouse, tells her to take a break, and enters the front room in time to hear his sister say, “Like, how good was your session? On a scale of one to ten, with one being you wanted to murder my brother the entire time, and ten being you wanted to—”

He sees Clarke’s gaze follow the hand he clapped over Octavia’s mouth to his arm, his shoulder, his neck, then up to meet his eyes.

“Now I want to know what ten was on the scale,” she says mildly.  

“No you don’t,” he says immediately.

Octavia takes that moment to lick the palm of his hand.

“God, O!” He lets her go and rubs his hand on his jeans.

She shrugs, and steals a sip of Lincoln’s iced tea.

Clarke is watching, an amused smile on her face. She looks...fresh, standing there, like the humidity doesn’t affect her at all, and her dress is pretty, purple and kind of loose and flowy until it stops midway down her thighs. Her legs are a pale gold and go on forever.

He clears his throat and jerks his head toward the hall. “My client’s taking a break for a bit—you got a minute?”

“Sure,” she says, and follows him down the hall to the little break room that’s just for the employees. It's nothing much, just a room with a fridge and microwave and a little table and chairs, but it's out of sight and out of earshot of the others. He hopes.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Bellamy says, hesitant, when they’re as alone as they can get. He feels nervous in a way he hasn’t since he was in ninth grade, hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, and Miller had insisted that he heard Gina had a crush on Bellamy.

“I know. I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve been...preoccupied.”

“Right, yeah.” He swallows. “I—business is good?”

“Yup. Better than I could have hoped for, honestly.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“My tattoo is healing well,” she offers, “as far as I can tell, at least.”

He nods. “Great.”

A beat of awkward silence stretches into two, then three, and finally he blurts out, “Do you—regret it?” just as she starts to say something about the cookies she brought with her in that cute fucking basket again.

“What?”

He rubs the back of his neck, sheepish.

“Do you regret it?”

* * *

She stares at him; he avoids her gaze.

“Do I regret it,” Clarke repeats slowly, each syllable dropping from her lips deliberately.

He shifts his weight from one leg to the other.

Clarke frowns. “Do I _regret_ it?” she says yet again. Something about the look on his face and the tone of his voice tells her that he’s not just asking about the tattoo.

Which, okay. She can see how he _might_ have gotten the impression that she regrets sitting in his lap, regrets kissing him until he held her tight, regrets touching him and having him touch her until all she wanted was to never _stop_ touching and being touched—given that she hasn’t been by in days.

(A tiny part of her cheers, because that means he _wanted_ her to come by, and she hasn't royally fucked things up.)

His expression is growing more and more nervous, and everything in her eases.

“No,” she says quietly. “I don’t.”

He lets out a breath. “Thank god.”

“Do you?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Bellamy grins at her. “Nope.”

“And you’re sure there aren’t artist-client rules I’ve broken?”

“No, I make out with my clients all the time,” he says.

A pretty woman a couple years older than Clarke knocks on the doorframe, getting their attention. She’s wearing a pair of spandex shorts that go only a couple of inches down, leaving room for the intricate lighthouse tattoo that’s half-done on her left thigh.

“Bellamy? I’m ready to start again whenever you are,” she says with a polite nod at Clarke.

The tips of his ears are red as he nods back at his client. “Yeah, I’ll be right back,” he says.

“Maybe I’m in the wrong profession,” Clarke muses when the woman ducks back out of the break room. “If being a tattoo artist means getting to kiss clients all the time and your clients look like her—”

“Alright, don’t quit your day job. I might have exaggerated,” Bellamy says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says, and moves into her. “I only make a habit of kissing the clients I really, really like.”

“She seemed very likeable,” Clarke manages, and curls a hand into his shirt when his hands slide around her ribs. The heel of his palm just barely brushes her breast on the way, but her breath catches in her throat. The basket of cookies hangs from her other hand as she keeps a white-knuckled grip on it.

“Sure,” Bellamy agrees. “Luna’s great. But out of all my clients, there's only one I really, really like.”

“The guy with the freaky orchid tattoos?” Clarke quips, and Bellamy snorts.

“He’s a close second,” he says, and kisses her, lips full and warm.

When he pulls back, she blinks at him, then smiles. “You're keeping Luna waiting,” she reminds him, though she'd happily stay wrapped up in him all day. But she needs to get back to her own shop too; she’s already run well over the time she allotted herself for her lunch break.

“If I say see you tomorrow, will I actually see you tomorrow?” he asks her, somehow shy and sly and pulling at her low in the belly all at once.

With great strength of will, she releases his shirt and puts the basket of cookies in his arms before he quite realizes what’s happening.

“I’ll do you one better, Bellamy Blake,” she says, and raises herself onto the balls of her feet to plant another kiss on his mouth, hot and wet and with teeth and with unmistakable purpose. “I’ll see you tonight.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're still sticking around and reading this fic, thank you, and know that the final chapters (for a total of seven) will come much quicker than this chapter did. Next one is up next week!
> 
> And if you were one of the many kind souls who left a comment on the last chapter, I read and treasured each and every one of them. THANK YOU for your time and your kindness. 
> 
> Also, huge, massive thanks goes to my BFF for acting as my beta when I was about to lose my mind. She doesn't even watch this show, guys. She just reads all my stuff anyway. <3


	6. Part VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The date.

Bellamy ducks his head into the work room to tell Luna he’ll be right with her, then walks Clarke to the front of the shop. He can feel Octavia’s stare burning a hole in his head and he flips her off without looking at her.

“I’ll see you all later,” Clarke says, waving to his sister and Lincoln. “Enjoy the cookies.”

She slants a look at him as she pushes open the door. “Bye, Bellamy.”

“Bye,” he says, and only realizes he’s staring after her, still clutching the basket she’d put in his arms, when his sister wanders over and plucks a cookie out.

“You’re a fucking idiot for that girl,” she says conversationally, and takes a bite of the cookie as they both look out and watch the afternoon foot traffic.

He shrugs and bites into his own cookie. Coconut bursts onto his tongue, sweet and almost caramelly where the edges got more toasted. He doesn’t even really like coconut all that much, but it’s fucking delicious.

Bellamy eats a second cookie, scrubs up, and goes back to Luna. As always, he falls into focus, thinking only of the art, the skin, of the right colors to blend and pull through the piece. But behind all that, is the strange and bubbly feeling that started when Clarke kissed him and hasn’t stopped.

(God, he's such a fucking sap.)

Luckily, Luna likes to listen to Broadway musicals with her eyes closed while she gets tattoos, so she doesn’t notice if he’s too fucking giddy or some shit to hold a decent conversation. The only thing that lets him know he wasn’t quite as composed as he’d hoped is when she pays for the session, gives him an arch look, and tells him to have a lovely time with the blonde.

He doesn’t blush because he’s a fucking professional, and he can act like a normal human being when his clients mention the woman next door who occupies practically his every thought.

(Well, fuck, he might blush a little.)

“Thanks,” he says. “Wash with—”

“Mild antibacterial soap, keep it moisturized, don’t sleep on it,” she recites. “I know the drill.”

“Yeah, well, just in case,” he says, and hands her the standard aftercare info sheet.

Luna smiles and tucks it in her purse. “Thanks, Bellamy.”

He nods, and the second she’s out the door, he has to fight the urge to run next door to Clarke’s shop like a lovestruck idiot.

“You have a 3:15,” Monroe reminds him. She doesn’t even bother looking up from her drafting table. “And she’s open until six.”

“I know that,” Bellamy replies. “I’m not—I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”

“Mmhmm,” Monroe says, and vigorously erases something. “Sure you weren’t.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he says, and then turns to greet his next appointment as he walks through the door.

* * *

Just moments after she flips the sign on the front door to “Closed,” something in Clarke’s belly jumps along with the little bell above the entrance when Bellamy walks in.

She does her best to ignore it, but he’s wearing a short-sleeved white tee today—probably to combat the ninety-five degree heat—she can only stare at crisp contrast between the cotton and his skin, the plain fabric and the ink and melanin that stains his body in impossibly beautiful ways.

Clarke becomes aware that she’s staring in the same moment she realizes she’s licking her lips, mouth suddenly too dry.

“Um, hey,” she says. “All finished?”

“Yeah,” he says, and rounds the counter to stand just behind her, looking down at the books and laptop and scraps of ribbon and lace and raffia that are scattered all over the place. “You look busy.”

She feels his breath hit her throat, gentle heat, and her whole body prickles in awareness.

“Yeah, I—” she lets out a little breathless laugh. “ _Borealis Blooms_ just booked its first wedding.”

“No shit?” he says, sounding delighted for her, and he spins her stool around so she’s facing him. He looks delighted too, and her heart positively squeezes when she sees the genuine excitement for her.

“No shit,” she agrees. “It’s a small wedding, so a small order, which is fine—it’s probably why they were willing to take a chance on someone like me who doesn’t have much of a portfolio.”

“And all this?” Bellamy asks, gesturing at the chaos on the counter. She swivels back around on her stool, but she feels his hand go to her waist, above her tattoo, stay there as if to steady her.

“They like seeing the inspiration,” she says, and launches into her process, how she plans to keep a kind of mood board for every bride or groom with the choices they make—swatches of color, pictures of the types of flowers, samples of the binding ribbon, any other accessories they want. Clarke knows she gets carried away as she talks, going far too much into detail about the composition of the bouquets and how to pick the right filler flower with the right focus, but this is what she loves—creating beauty for people, and making sure it’s the most perfect beauty for them that it can be.

But when she trails off, feeling a little sheepish, and looks at him, he’s just grinning at her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he replies. “Just—this is awesome, Clarke.”

“Oh,” she says, a little helpless, because damn it, she really likes this man, and it feels good to have him believe in her like this.

“Clarke?”

She shakes her head, swivels the stool until he’s standing in between her thighs, and draws his face down to hers.

The rasp of stubble under her palms is ticklish, and the way he sinks into the kiss instantly, mouth opening and lips catching on hers, has her belly jumping again.

Bellamy lets out a needy little sound when she nibbles on his bottom lip, then soothes it with her tongue, and she slides her hands from his face down to the planes of his chest, so she can feel the vibrations against her skin. But it’s not quite good enough, so as he licks into her mouth, she slips her hands beneath the cotton shirt to rest against blazing skin.

“What the fuck,” Clarke says into his mouth. She can _feel_ the ridges of hard muscle under her hands, trembling as her fingertips skate over the skin.

* * *

“What?” he pants, pulling back.

Clarke looks dazed. “How the fuck are you real?” she demands, and his breath catches when she moves her hands again over his abdomen, his chest. “No real person is this fucking cut, Bellamy.”

He snorts even though her touch is making him feel shaky, nearly weak with wanting her. “Have you seen Lincoln?”

She pauses, and he can practically see her mind working, considering. “Point,” she acknowledges, “but I’m much more interested in seeing you.”

Clarke bites her lip on the last word, and her hands move farther, pulling his shirt with them. He lets out a shaky breath.

“Yeah, uh—fuck,” he says when her thumb circles his nipple lazily. “We can do that, just—”

She pauses at the word. “Just?”

“Just,” he says, encircling her wrists and carefully drawing her hands out from his shirt. She looks embarrassed until he presses hot kisses to both wrists. “I don’t see any blinds on your windows, and I doubt you _really_ want potential clients getting such an in-depth look at your, uh, late nights at work.”

“Good call,” she says. “So…do you…”

He checks the time on the wall clock, then squeezes her hand. “Are you hungry?”

Clarke’s mouth opens in surprise before she smiles, something almost shy. “Starved.”

He takes her to The Dumpling House, just half a block from his apartment. They walk there, him asking if she’s been to this place or that one since she moved to the city, her wondering if he ever cooks if he claims to have been to all the restaurants they’re passing. He doesn’t let go of her hand, and she turns their palms so their fingers interlace.

The same old woman as always sits in the window of The Dumpling House, forming ten fresh dumplings a minute with nimble fingers. They start with an order of his favorite kind of dumpling, and she tells him about her friend Raven, and how she’s dating Clarke’s childhood best friend but pretends she isn’t, and about her mother, who still lives in California, remarried to the guy who owns Eden Tree Almonds. He tells her about how angry he was when Octavia refused to go college, and how proud of her he was when she got promoted at the dojo.

* * *

“Bellamy?” she asks, once they’ve demolished an order and a half of the dumplings.

“Yeah?”

“What’s your other tattoo of? The one you did yourself?”

He’s quiet for a moment, then he sets his chopsticks to the side and turns his forearm toward her.  

“It’s this one.”

Clarke takes his arm in her hands, delicately positioning it so she can see best. On it, near his wrist, there’s a lemniscate. She’s noticed it before in passing, but up close it’s pretty, clean lines, and when she peers closer she sees the one part of the infinity symbol isn’t a plain line at all, but the name _Aurora_ in tiny, delicate font.

“You did this on yourself?” she asks, awed. It seems like a difficult task for any tattoo artist, trying to work with such fine lines and not lose the individual letters of the word. To do it on himself…

“Yeah. I wasn’t allowed to move on to tattooing actual clients until I tried tattooing myself,” Bellamy says, looking at it with her.

“It’s beautiful,” Clarke says, tracing the shape with her fingers. She sees goosebumps on his arm, even though it’s not at all cold in the restaurant.

“When I was born,” she says, “my dad bought a star and named it after me. He studied the aurora borealis, but he loved everything about the sky, about space. When he died, I found the closest star to mine and did the same for him.” At least in that small way, they would always be close.

She knows he understands when he squeezes her hand.

After, full and comfortable, he asks her if she's ready to go, and she says yes.

* * *

When they get to his apartment, just in case she’s changed her mind, he says, “So, I can make us coffee, or I think my sister left tea here, and I have Netflix, if you want to watch something, or—”

“Bellamy?” She’s smiling at him in that way that he’s pretty sure means she’s laughing at him too. Which seems fair, if he’s being honest.

“Yeah?”

“Take me to bed.”

“Yeah.” He lets out a breath. “Yeah, okay.”

He can see her taking in his place as they walk down the hall to his bedroom, both acting as if the air wasn’t instantly charged the moment they stepped in the apartment. Hell, the moment they met.

There are family photos on the wall, of him and O and his mom at O’s kindergarten graduation. He refused to smile because he’d been missing a tooth. A picture of him with Miller; a picture from Miller’s wedding. Another of just him with Octavia at her high school graduation; a group shot some passing tourist had taken for them on _Aurora’s_ opening day.

“I like your home,” Clarke says, glancing around his bedroom, at the navy comforter on the large bed, the big black and white prints of D.C. at night hanging in a row.

“Thanks.” Bellamy clears his throat. “Uh, I tested clean a couple months ago.”

“Me too,” Clarke says, and draws him over to his bed before promptly sitting on his lap. It seems to be one of her new favorite places to sit, and he really doesn’t mind one fucking bit. “I’m on the pill, but I like to use condoms too.”

“I’ve got some.”

“Good,” she says, and grinds down until he sees stars, constellations even.

“Wait,” he says, grasping her around the waist and stilling her movement.

Clarke straightens, visibly concerned. “Something wrong?”

“I don’t want you to stress your back,” he says worriedly, still holding her in place on top of him.

She smiles, then sighs and sets her hands on his shoulders. “What do you tell your other clients?”

“What?”

“About sex. What do you tell your other clients about sex after getting a tattoo?”

Her hands wander, and her fingers toy with his hair; he shivers as he tries to reply. “Uh—well, just to…ah, be careful,” he says, voice hoarse when she bends down to kiss the juncture of his throat and shoulders. “Stop if it starts to hurt, and for sure nothing rough until it’s fully healed.”

“Mmm,” Clarke says, and switches her attention to the other side of his throat. “So just don’t be too rough with me this time.”

“Fuck,” he says, and he can feel her smile on his skin.

“Touch me,” she urges, and he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was kicking myself about not being able to wrap this up in five chapters like I'd originally promised, but, alas. I just couldn't. So let's all pretend this was always intentional. You're all the best, and thanks for reading along with this fic. I'm so grateful for each one of your comments, and just for you. One more chapter after this! 
> 
> Also smut. Smut after this.


	7. Part VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The choice.

Bowing his head to her throat, Bellamy lingers there, sucking at the skin until it bruises and Clarke tilts her head back, sighing, eyes closed in bliss. Bellamy pays similar attention to the delicate line of her clavicle, her shoulder, until she makes a needy sound and squeezes her thighs tighter around his hips.

Clarke's going to lose her mind in about ten seconds if he doesn't touch her, _really_ touch her like she's been aching for and dreaming of; the almost impossibly gentle touch of his mouth to her skin is as maddening as it is lovely, and she's slick between her thighs and aching for a more deliberate touch.

Thankfully, Bellamy gets the hint.

He grasps the hem of her dress; she lifts her hips, and he lifts it up and over her head, carefully untangling it from her hair. She undoes her bra herself, and when it’s tossed to the ground, his hands cup her breasts. She feels small under his hands, and her breath catches in her throat when he kisses the top of her breast, eyes dark and hooded as he looks at her.

She leans forward as he lifts his face to hers; she grasps his lower lip between her teeth, pulling lightly. “I'm nearly naked on your lap, Bellamy. Are you going to do something about it, or am I going to have to?” she asks, low and teasing. She rocks her hips over his, delighted when he hisses at the friction. She can feel him through his jeans, perfectly hard and settled just right between her thighs.

“I mean, I'm not going to _stop_ you if you want to do something about it,” he replies, tangling his hand in her hair so he can tilt her head back and scrape his teeth over her jaw, making her shiver. “But I've got some things in mind.”

“Like what?” she challenges; then she yelps and clings to him when he lifts her off of him and sets her on the edge of the bed. He lowers himself to sit on his knees between her thighs.

“Don't lie back,” Bellamy says, fingers wound around her underwear. “It’ll hurt your back.” He tugs, and she lets him slip the panties off, down her legs, tossed somewhere on the floor. He lays a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her knee.

“Wait!” Clarke blurts out; he pulls his mouth away.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just—” she leans forward and curls her fingers in his shirt, pulls. He ducks his head and helps her shuck the garment, then looks at her quizzically.

“I wanted to feel you,” she says, body heating with a blush that has nothing to do with the fact that she's completely naked in front of him. She can see stark lettering spelling out _absolutum dominium_ across his ribs and wants to taste them, wants to find the rest of the ink scattered across his body and memorize each piece and the way they lie on his body.

He grins, tension easing from his face. “Got it,” he says. “All good?”

“All good,” she says, and then inhales sharply as he spreads her thighs and licks into her. He shoulders himself under her thighs, and stalling him in order to take off his shirt was the right call; the tender flesh of her thighs is pressed against him, body firm and warm against her own.

She leans back, barely mindful enough to catch herself on her palms instead of collapsing onto her back. But this position is better; she can see him better, the steady movement of his jaw as he works his mouth against her, tongue stroking through her folds, tracing her labia, working upward to tease her clit mercilessly until she's _just_ on the edge and then stopping so she wants to _scream_.

“I will _murder_ you,” she threatens when he lifts his mouth. He laughs, mouth and chin glistening, and slides two fingers into her while he sucks another bruise into her inner thigh. She keens, high in her throat, as the pressure of his mouth edges on painful in delicious contrast to the decisive movement of his fingers within her; then he adds his thumb to her clit, and she shudders, tightens her thighs around him, and barely manages to keep from collapsing onto her back as she comes. Her arms tremble with the strain, her thighs too, and she closes her eyes as he brings his mouth back to her clit, little licks easing her through the orgasm.

* * *

She’s beautiful, Bellamy thinks as he slows his touch and places one of her legs and then the other back on the ground. Her skin is petal smooth under his hands; she’s flushed pink all over, bottom lip swollen and marked where she bit it when she came, breasts full and nipples peaked. He eases up onto the bed beside her, places a hand between her shoulder blades to help keep her upright. And because he can’t quite resist, he palms a breast, soft and heavy in his hand, thumb brushing the underside and then up and around her nipple.

That has her cracking an eye open to look at him.

“Hey,” he says. He’s always the worst at this, trying to figure out what to say to a girl when he’s still got the taste of her in his mouth.

She snorts at the word, and in another second she’s pushed herself up and over until she’s straddling his lap.

“Hey,” Clarke replies, all sated eyes and satisfied smile, and holds his face in her hands to kiss him. It’s wet, dirty, and she hums when she finds the taste of herself on his tongue. Her hand goes between them, slipping into his jeans; the lightest touch on his dick has him jumping, swearing into her mouth.

“You—” he chokes a little when she wraps her fist around him, strokes him. “Ah, you don’t need a break or anything?”

“That’s very sweet,” she says, and pecks his mouth again before shoving his shoulders until he’s flat on his back on the bed. “But good orgasms mostly just make me want more orgasms.”

“Oh.”

She grins wickedly at him, and he kicks off his jeans and boxer briefs with her help. “Condoms are in the drawer,” he says, pointing at his nightstand.

“Cool, good to know,” she replies, and takes him into her mouth.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bellamy gasps, nearly a shout; he fists the comforter in his hands as she uses her lips and her tongue and her mouth in all the ways that seem designed to utterly undo him. “Fuck, Clarke, you—”

She hums, running a hand over his abdomen, feeling his muscles jump in response to the touch in spite of how innocent it is in comparison to her mouth on his cock.

When he’s about to die, when he’s literally about to fucking die because Clarke Griffin is trying to _kill him_ (maybe she’s trying to do it on purpose; if she does the funeral flowers, she can add them to her portfolio), she pulls her mouth off of him, kisses his hip, then sits up and beams at him.

“Where are those condoms again?”

He nearly topples her over when he lunges for the drawer, setting her off into giggles, but once the condom is on and he helps her straddle him and lower herself down, the laughter becomes a long, long moan.

“Fuck, Bellamy,” she says, face tucked into the crook of his neck, arms wrapped around him. Each word is a hot kiss.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yes, please, fuck me. Please.”

Her laugh tickles, and so does the sigh she lets out when she rolls her hips over him, once, three times, then begins to move with purpose. The hair at the nape of her neck is damp with exertion, but still soft in his fingers; she smells like sweat and flowers, lemons and verbena, and a little bit like Chinese dumplings, and he never wants to stop breathing her in.

He really is doomed, Bellamy thinks, but if holding this woman and being held by her is his fate, he’ll gladly accept it.

* * *

She wakes up to slightly scratchy cotton sheets, her phone on the pillow next to her face buzzing with texts, and the smell of coffee and pancakes.

Bellamy isn’t in the room, but there’s a sticky note on her phone: _I’m pretty sure all of those texts are from Raven and that she thinks you’re dead._

“Oops,” Clarke says, and hurriedly types out a quick text to Raven, promising she’s alright.

 _I’m still at Bellamy’s_ , she adds; there’s a momentary pause in the barrage of texts from her friend, and then her phone lights up with a new message: _S T I L L??????? i’m so proud_

She rolls her eyes and rolls out of bed, stretching onto her toes. Her body’s aching in a way it hasn’t in months and months, the pleasure of the night before lingering in every ligament.

There’s a t-shirt folded up on the side of the bed, and she slips it on before padding out into the kitchen.

“Morning,” she says; Bellamy jumps a little in his place in front of the stove, then glances over his shoulder at her.

“Morning,” he replies. “I, uh, didn’t know what you liked for breakfast, so…”

Clarke looks around the kitchen at the plate of waffles, the pancakes he’s working on, the fresh cut fruit in a bowl, the box of Raisin Bran lined up next to the maple syrup on the counter.

“Oh, so you made literally everything,” she says. “Cool. Very impressive, chef-wise.”

“Yeah, I’m a regular _Chopped_ champion,” he says, dry, and she goes over to wrap her arms around his waist and peer around him to look at the stove. “How’s your back?” he asks. One of his hands rests over hers.

“Fine,” she says. “Probably time to wash it and put some lotion on, but it feels fine.”

“Good,” he says. He sounds relieved, and once he flips the pancake, she tugs at his arm until he turns into her.

“Hey,” she says. “You know it would have been worth it, right?”

Bellamy frowns. “What?”

“Last night,” she says. “With you. Not that I wanted to hurt my tattoo, but—last night would have been worth it.”

He still looks skeptical. “Have you ever actually seen a tattoo that was damaged in the healing process?”

“No, and that wasn’t the point,” Clarke says. “The _point_ was that—”

Bellamy cups her face in his stupid, huge, perfect hands. “Yeah, I know what the point was, Clarke.” He kisses her this time, easy and slow, until the smoke detector goes off, curlicues of grey rising from the pancake still on the griddle.

Later, when they’re at his kitchen table with huge stacks of syrup-sticky pancakes, she says, “You know, it’s kind of like the myth. Persephone?”

“What is?” Bellamy replies, and licks maple off his thumb, which is honestly just distracting and uncalled for.

“I mean, I chose to have the six seeds in the tattoo because I’m choosing my new life here,” Clarke says. “She chose her new home, her new life, her new lover when she ate the seeds; I chose the shop, the city, my friends—and you, even though you were honestly kind of a dick that first day.”

Bellamy’s quiet for a moment. “Did you just compare dating me to Persephone spending half of her life in actual hell as Hades’s bride?”

“Okay, just kidding, you’re _still_ a dick,” Clarke huffs, and Bellamy laughs, catches her hand when she stands and makes as if to stomp away, and pulls her toward him for a long heady kiss.

When he pulls back, he keeps his hold on her. “Yeah, but you’re the one who chose me.”

Bellamy’s smile is like a sunrise, slipping over the horizon so slowly until all at once it’s blinding in its beauty. Something inside her blooms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end, my friends. After far too long in the making, Aurora Borealis is complete! I'm open to exploring future moments in this universe if anyone ever gets the urge to see something, but in the meantime, thank you SO MUCH for reading, commenting, and just being lovely.


End file.
